In the field of wireless communications, conserving battery power is a universal design concern. An important operating condition during which the conservation of battery power is particularly important occurs when wireless communication devices are out of network coverage range. Every attempt to reestablish connection with a network consumes battery power, thus continuously attempting to reconnect to a network when network coverage is unavailable can quickly deplete a battery. To conserve battery power, current wireless communication devices will repeat a network connection attempt at either uniform search intervals or at variable search intervals. In the uniform search interval scheme, a device will “wake up” at fixed time intervals, whether or not the devices are within range of network coverage. In variable interval schemes, the wireless communication device may sleep for an initial short interval before attempting a network connection. If the device fails to acquire a network signal, the device may return to the sleep mode for a longer time interval before performing another network connection attempt. The sleep period depends upon the number of failed network connection attempts. Thus, current methods all require attempting and failing to establish a network connection before determining the next sleep interval and returning to a sleep mode.